thrives on young girls threatened and coerced. for traffickers, it s never been safer to make millions. the men who sell women can hide themselves behind the girls they advertise on the internet. we take it very seriously. we ve been working with the fbi for years. this is a craigslist operation. the oakland, california police department trafficking task force has conducted internet sting operations for years. to find exploited girls, they simply follow the internet trail. this girl i want to get to. she s 17. it s thursday night and oakland pd s human trafficking task force gears up for an undercover sting. the undercover officers will be out there in these vehicles in high prostitution areas cruising around. tonight oakland s task force will send six new undercovers out on the streets to pose as johns, looking to pay cash for sex. the mission is to arrest the
like ebay anymore. why, then, should we have human beings auctioned off as entertainment? many believe the only real way to impact what amounts to modern-day slavery is to crack down on the buy yers. the oakland police department runs sting operations by sending female officers under cover. on this night, four squad cars and 12 officers watch and wait for suspected johns. the decoys have barely hit the corner and already johns are taking the bait. one after another, the men pull up trying to attract the girl s attention. this john gets tired of waiting in his car and decides to approach the decoy on foot. listen up, we have a walk-up. the john leaves, thinking he s about to meet the girl
she was i d say i know she was well under five feet tall. she wasn t developed. and she was with a mentor who was probably 13 years old. 13 or 14 if i remember. and we were shocked. oakland pd knows that moments like these where they can isolate the girls from their captors are the only window of opportunity to try to offer young women help and services. i mean, some of the stories i ve heard are just horrendous. for hoffman, every story is a heart breaker, whether it s the 10-year-old sent out to work the streets for her mother or the 14-year-old runaway who ran into the arms of a man she thought would love and protect her only to discover a life of daily beatings and sexual abuse. we recognize these ladies and truly being victims and so we re trying to educate them and get let them know they can have the power, not to give their power away to somebody else that s going to hurt them and
proposition of the night. how much for two of us? just quick head. oh, that s going to be a hundred. i don t know all right. where should i meet you? all right. walk over there. i ll meet you. moments later officer saleda tells officers to grab the young woman for soliciting prostitution. in the old days it was a sweep. you just swept these girls off the street and dunt give a damn. you threw them in jail and you weren t attacking a problem. you weren t solving the problem. the girls would keep coming back out and keep doing it. by attacking the pimps and making them pay, they don t victimize other girls when we get them and the girls get the services and we can save one or two, then we ve done our jobs. it s modern day slavery. it truly is. four nights a week, sting or no sting operation, oakland pd s debbie hoffman works the street as part of opd s see care unit. she is the human equivalent of a life line trying to reach the unreachable. human trafficking is
thrives on young girls threatened and coerced. for traffickers, it s never been safer to make millions. the men who sell women can hide themselves behind a girl they advertise on the internet. we take it very seriously. we ve been working with the fbi for years. this is a craigslist operation. the oakland, california police department trafficking task force has conducted internet sting operations for years. to find exploited girls, they simply follow the internet trail. this girl i want to get to. she s 17. it s thursday night and oakland pd s human trafficking task force gears up for an undercover sting. the undercover officers will be out there in these vehicles in high prostitution areas cruising around. tonight oakland s task force will send six new undercovers out on the streets to pose as